


Come quench me

by SweetPollyOliver



Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers
Genre: Body Image, Denial just like... generally, Denial of Feelings, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Making Out, Mutual Pining, Practice Kissing, Self Confidence Issues, age of characters vague, mild and not hugely explicit but also definitely there, offscreen implied handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 12:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10921860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetPollyOliver/pseuds/SweetPollyOliver
Summary: Four times Bulk and Skull 'practised' kissing and one time they dropped the pretense.





	Come quench me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellipsesificate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellipsesificate/gifts).



> So, towards the end of my last fic I had a line about how Bulk never helped Skull practise kissing, to which my own immediate reaction was... what if he did though?

The thing was, Skull was useless. Completely pathetic. Despite plenty of attempts, he had never successfully put the moves on a single solitary girl, but he _would_ set his sights on the one who was the most assuredly out of his reach and out of his league. 

"Do you even like her?" Bulk asked one day, to a Eugene Skullovitch who was peering morosely into his bedroom mirror. 

"Yeah!" Skull said a little too sharply. "Why wouldn't I like her?"

"Do you have any shared interests?" he asked.

He watched as Skull continued to open and close his mouth like a guppy that had hopped out of its tank and was just now realising this might not have been such a hot idea as he searched for words. 

"Her hair?" he offered, finally. 

Bulk rolled his eyes. 

"If it's all physical, there are other girls, you know?" he said. "Girls who don't have boyfriends and don't groan when they hear your voice."

"S'not like I'd get very far with them either," Skull said with an uncharacteristic note of defeat colouring his tone. He hadn't even made an attempt at a grab at the low lying fruit that was the idea of Kimberly groaning at the thought of him.

"Sure you would," Bulk said. "I say again: girls are not all exactly like Kimberly Ann Hart in their likes and dislikes. There are many who might like you enough to let you touch their-"

"Bulk!"

"-hearts," he finished. 

Skull sat down heavily next to him on the bed. Or as heavily as someone who weighed as much as a graham cracker could manage, anyway. 

"Yeah, right," he said. 

It wasn't nice seeing him so down, which was what Bulk would later blame for his next impulsive action.

"Well if you're so sure you're bad at it why don't you practise? Take a run at me."

He saw about five different expressions, each less decipherable than the last, cross Skull's face before he settled on something that might have been fearful curiosity.

"Wh-what do you mean?" he stammered. 

"I'm the girl, you're the- you're you. Show me what you've got." His heartbeat was pounding so hard he that thought it must be audible from half a mile away, but it was too late to act like inviting Skull to try to pick him up had been a weird thing to suggest now. Nothing to do but commit. "Just pretend. Just for practice. Look-"

He pulled his hair out of its ponytail and then sectioned off a smaller section and re-tied it higher up on his head. Skull looked at him a little dubiously.

"Do you have a scrunchie?" he asked.

"Yeah, because _then_ the illusion will be complete. No I do not have a scrunchie," Bulk snapped. 

"Okay, okay!" Skull lifted his hands up in surrender. "So, uh… I- would, um-" He turned around to face Bulk better. His hands fluttered around him trying to find a place to land, before he folded them awkwardly in his lap and then immediately unfolded them and braced them against the bed. But then…

He looked up at Bulk's face and the nervousness dropped from him like a mask. Bulk swallowed.

"Hey," Skull said. He picked up Bulk's hand and rubbed a thumb against the back of his wrist. "This place blows, you wanna get out of here?"

"Well I guess I said something physical," Bulk muttered under his breath while he rolled his eyes again. Skull's cool facade dropped for a second and he looked up at him with panic in his eyes. "No, no you're doing fine, go on." 

"You're really pretty," Skull said with a just audible quaver in his voice as he shambled his way back into character. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair off Bulk's face.

"Not as strong," Bulk frowned.

Skull's hand snapped away and he frowned back at him. 

"I thought you were going to be the girl," he hissed. "You're giving me nothing back here. Can you leave the criticism til the end?" 

"I'm sorry," Bulk said. "Just keep going, I'll stop."

He felt the bed give way a little as Skull started to slide a little closer to him. He toyed briefly with the idea of saying something in falsetto or maybe twirling his hair around his finger, but before he could Skull's hand was back on his face. It was cool and dry and not altogether terrible, just sitting there on his cheek.

"Well then I'd… I mean I'd," Skull leaned closer to him. Bulk started to feel panic rising in his chest, but he didn't move. Couldn’t move. 

Skull stopped a good half foot clear of his face and made a big, fake, "Mwah!" sound before releasing him and spring backward. "Like that, I guess."

He should have realised that Skull would never have just kissed him, not even a kiss that clearly telegraphed that he could have twisted away from if he hadn’t been frozen stock still. 

"Just like that?" Bulk asked, affecting calm while his pulse banged against his eardrums. 

"Well, no, obviously," Skull said, nerves creeping into his voice again. "But how was that?"

"Maybe…" Bulk paused for a second, feeling almost outside his body, to wonder what the hell he was doing. "I dunno. It's hard to say. Maybe you should just show me for real."

For a second neither of them said anything and Skull stared at him with another blank expression, mouth half open. 

Maybe he could maybe still take it back. It could have just been a joke. 

Just as he started to open his mouth to take it all back, Skull leapt forward again and pressed his lips against his. 

Their mouths didn't overlap perfectly; Skull's bottom lip ended up between Bulk's upper and lower lips, his upper lip warm and soft against Bulk's philtrum. He pulled back a little to readjust and Bulk moved to meet him halfway. 

This time Bulk felt the swipe of Skull's tongue against his bottom lip and surprise opened his mouth, which Skull took as encouragement. He half expected to have his friend's entire tongue in his mouth nearly choking him in short order, but Skull had either been getting practise _somewhere_ or he was a quick study. Without consciously deciding to, Bulk found himself reciprocating. 

When Skull pulled away, he leaned forward a little to try and follow him before he could stop himself.

"Okay," Skull's voice sounded lower than usual. "What about that?"

"Fine," Bulk said. "That was fine."

They played video games for the rest of the night and didn't talk about it. 

*

After that it just kept happening. They still didn't talk about it, except when it was actually in progress and even then they kept the out of character talk to a minimum. 

Since that first time, Bulk never initiated it. Something about Skull's demeanour would shift and he'd look at him heavy lidded and just as Bulk would think he was maybe just getting sleepy, Skull would drop some cheesy pick up line on him. Skull had an almost touching faith in the potency of The Pick Up Line, although his only success with them had been in practice. To be fair though, he did have a 100% success rate in practice. 

"Hey," Skull tugged at his sleeve and Bulk turned away from the TV to look at his friend’s now familiar smoulder. 

"If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?" he asked, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Bulk threw a pillow at his head. 

"Okay, so that one's a miss?" Skull asked, pulling feathers out of his mouth.

Well. Nearly 100%. 

*

Some other missteps occurred further on. Notably, one time when Bulk became slowly aware, while Skull was busy sucking a hickey into his skin just beneath his neckline, that he was also busy trying to get to second base. 

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked. Skull detached from his clavicle with a wet pop.

"We've done this before... am I not doing it right this time?" he asked. His fingers were still plucking absently at Bulk's right nipple. 

"Not that, numbskull!" Bulk said. He could feel a blush creeping up his chest. He gestured down sharply with his chin. 

"Oh!" Skull pulled his hand out from Bulk's shirt like he’d been scalded. "Was I going too fast?"

"No, you-" Bulk stopped himself. He brought his hands up to his mouth in a prayer position. "Look, just because there's enough there for you to grab a handful doesn't mean I'm helping you practise that." 

"I'm sorry," Skull was blushing now too. "I didn't- I wasn't thinking."

"It's fine," Bulk said. "Let's just- let's call it a night for now." 

*

The time that Skull reached for his belt he didn't even get the benefit of a 'what the hell are you doing?' so much as a firm shove off the bed. 

"Okay," said Skull from the floor. "Got it."

"Great," Bulk replied. He waited for Skull to climb back onto the bed, but nothing happened.

"Can I ask a question?" Skull asked, still out of sight on the floor. After a silence of three seconds he spoke again. "So… you- I mean- You did this for me before? A coupla times. Which was nice! But, uh, you don't want me to do it for you?"

"You got it," Bulk said, from between clenched teeth. 

Skull clambered up beside him again and sidled closer slowly so he could reach out and pet down his side, like Bulk was some kind of animal he was trying to calm. 

"Why?" Skull asked, seemingly to his hand on Bulk's waist. "I mean, I won't do it again if you don't want me to, but it's hard to know what you don't want me to do sometimes because we don't talk about it." 

"It's-" Bulk stopped himself. "There's no point in that. I'm not… me and Kimberly are built too differently for you to be practising that with me."

"Well that's never stopped us before," Skull smirked a little and pinched his hip. Bulk pushed his hand off roughly. "I- I mean, maybe it doesn't have to have a point? Not every time, I mean, maybe it could just-"

"I need to go home," Bulk said and stood up suddenly to go. 

*

Maybe it would have been better if he'd just have given Skull the cold shoulder, but that would have attracted attention (and, worse, speculation) from people at school and god help him but he didn't want to overhear that shit. Besides, pretending something had never happened was something of a specialty of his by now. 

Skull wasn't as good at it. He kept catching him looking at him with big, sad seal pup eyes. 

When the bell finally rang, he started to put his books straight into his bag. He didn't want to go to Ernie's—pretending everything was normal only went so far. He'd probably just go home and do his _homework_ or something. 

Beside him, Skull quietly packed away his own books. The only sound between them was the wet smack of gum as Skull's jaws worked furiously. Bulk also half-imagined he could hear a whoosh effect with every nervous dart of Skull's head towards him. 

He could also feel every single curious pair of eyes in the room on them like lasers. Apparently even being slightly subdued compared to normal was enough to attract attention. 

Yeah, giving the cold shoulder definitely wouldn't have worked. 

Never quick to pick up on nonverbal social cues, Skull stayed by his elbow as he walked out the door and started off home, without so much as stopping by his locker. Skull didn't ask if he could come with him and Bulk didn't tell him he couldn't. They just walked. 

It was strange not to have Skull bump into to his side every couple of steps—he was too clumsy to avoid bashing into people he was next to, usually, unless he was really trying to keep some careful distance between them as a buffer against his inability to walk in a straight line—and for him to be so quiet. The whole pretending everything was normal routine could have been going better, honestly.

When they arrived at Bulk's house, his mom made a big fuss over Skull and insisted on making him something to eat. Mrs. Bulkmeier harboured strong suspicions that if she didn't get a sandwich into Skull whenever possible that he'd just forget to eat altogether. To be fair to her, she wasn't entirely wrong, but Bulk usually managed to stay on top of reminding Skull that he was a biological organism with nutritional needs that couldn't be satisfied with gum and daydreams alone himself. At least he did a better job at it than Skull did by himself, anyway.

The slight awkwardness of hanging out with his mom in the kitchen while Skull tried to make small talk with her masked the greater awkwardness that was between them at first, but once they were alone in Bulk's room with a closed door behind them it was, once again, unavoidable. 

Skull moved the plate he was holding on his lap onto Bulk's bedside locker and turned sideways to face him. Bulk avoided making eye contact.

"Can I try something different?" Skull asked. 

It was probably the easiest way to pretend everything was normal. Just jump back on the horse. Bulk nodded a quick agreement.

He felt a hand slide under his and then Skull was right in his personal bubble reaching across him for his other hand. Skull turned both hands so that they were palm up in his with his fingers curled around the backs of them. His thumbs skimmed lightly over the inside of Bulk's wrists. 

"I really like you," Skull wasn't making eye contact either—just looking down at their hands. "I- I've always really liked you. And I think about you all the time."

Bulk felt his chest tighten despite himself. Skull didn't usually go for heartfelt. He barely went for an opening line half the time lately—they'd reduced their shorthand to a look and that was usually all they'd need before switching gears. 

"And I always want to kiss you. And touch you." Skull's voice cracked a little. "Just you. Nobody else. I- I want you to be my- I want to be your boyfriend." 

Bulk felt a tear splash onto his palm and he finally looked up at Skull's face. His eyelashes were clumped together and his face was alternating between being screwed up tight and being completely blank. 

"But I want you to be my friend more than I want any of that," he went on. "And I'd rather just be your friend than kiss you and pretend that I'm pretending it's someone else." 

Oh.

"I can forget about it," Skull said. "I swear. I know that you don't like me like that. I'll just ignore it until it goes away."

Bulk pulled his hands away from Skull's grasp and, just as Skull's face fell and he started to turn away again, Bulk reached out to grab him by the shoulders and turn him back.

"Who says I don't like you like that?" he asked sharply. "Don't I get to decide that?"

Skull looked up at him with an expression that was the twin of the one he wore when Bulk first suggested that he use him as a practice dummy. The same fearful curiosity.

"What are you saying?" he asked cautiously. 

Different answers swam through Bulk's mind. That he hadn't been kidding when he said that other people would like him back. That if he hadn't liked him like that he never would have let this thing start in the first place, never mind go as far as it had. That Skull was so, so beautiful. That he wasn't good enough for Skull—wasn’t even good enough to let him go so he could find someone better.

Instead, he pulled him closer, closer.

He'd never kissed Skull first before. He’d never been brave enough.

Bulk moved his hands from Skull’s shoulders to wipe the tears off his cheeks and Skull let out a slow shuddering sigh, before their lips met and stole the sound.


End file.
